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Monthly Archives: June 2015

I find myself in a strange position where the things I think are at odds with those around me.

A shift of a hundred years has brought much needed change and freedom. To so much of it yes, yes, yes. But there are also fundamental fractures that if untended may never heal. I am choosing to stand on this hallowed and uncomfortable turf called home. To keep on placing myself in a painful place is difficult but I am choosing difficult anyway.

What is stranger still is the packaging of this thinking in the form of “British Values”. I should be able to sign up for them; they should be the reference point for something good. They should be mine but they just sound like lies from the spin doctors. Did we vote on them or have a referendum? Maybe I was away for that one, or perhaps no one thought we would notice. They try to provide unity and peace of mind but really they are just a cover for the rich getting richer and pleasing themselves. I have lived here all my life but this turf feels less and less like home. I could hide away and keep low but I feel the need to engage. I am choosing difficult anyway.

New freedoms in living for some mean that the old prisons become places where ideas are locked away. Old wisdom no longer valid; theology altered so none are offended. I don’t have words to express to this world the truth that lives in me in a way that translates beyond the bars of it’s incapacitated thinking.

Strange how a society that values tolerance what’s to imprison or better still eradicate my freedom to think differently. Surely tolerance is more that just not upsetting others with different views. I don’t like or want the pain of this, yet I choose difficult anyway.

Perhaps I should pull away? Pursue the easy life and not cause trouble or ask questions.

Just like everything and give my silent consent.

But this is not true to who I am, to the truth living in me who invites me to choose difficult anyway. So I stay and love and listen, with my theology and thinking still in tact, knowing there is hope in this life and the next.